Damping of elementary excitations in one-dimensional dipolar Bose gases

Abstract

In the presence of dipolar interactions, the excitation spectrum of a Bose gas can acquire a local minimum. The corresponding quasiparticles are known as rotons. They are gapped and do not decay at zero temperature. Here we study the decay of rotons in one-dimensional Bose gases at low temperatures. It predominantly occurs due to the backscattering of thermal phonons on rotons. The resulting rate scales with the third power of temperature and is inversely proportional to the sixth power of the roton gap near the solidification phase transition. The hydrodynamic approach used here enables us to find the decay rate for quasiparticles at practically any momenta, with minimal assumptions on the exact form of the interparticle interactions. Our results are an essential prerequisite for the description of all the dissipative phenomena in dipolar gases and have direct experimental relevance.